“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” and the Legacy of Eric Carle
Hello, and welcome to the start of my trek into the world of children’s publishing! Each week, I’ll be studying foundational children’s books — both classic and contemporary, and across all age levels — following their journey through the publishing industry and getting to know what they can tell us about the evolution of children’s literature. Some books will be undeniable classics, like Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth and S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, and others will be my personal childhood favorites, like Eliza Woloson’s My Friend Isabelle and Raina Telgemeier’s Smile.
We start with a very humble beginning: the board book. For the next four weeks, I’ll be sharing double-feature posts, starting with board books and then moving into picture books for the following three weeks. As we climb on towards chapter books, middle grade, and YA, we’ll focus on one book a week.
When I was searching for the right books to open up this project, I had no doubt in my mind that Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? would be my opening story. I admired how simply Brown Bear encouraged exploration, and Eric Carle’s joyful artwork creates such a colorful world within the book.
I read Brown Bear for the first time in approximately two decades; Carle’s illustrations stand out brighter than ever on the fresh copy my mom keeps in her office, as she introduces it to new children through her work as a speech-language pathologist. When I first picked up this study, I asked her what drew her to the books that she selected for her lessons.
Her answer? Books that are repetitive, that help get young readers familiar with the vocabulary and teach them to anticipate what comes next.
Brown Bear’s iconic call-and-response phrasing, mastered by author Bill Martin Jr., is the perfect example of helpful repetition in children’s books. Beginning with the titular brown bear, readers are introduced to a bird, a duck, a horse, a frog, and a cat. The book then takes the readers into a new and exciting learning environment, the classroom, and encounters a teacher and her students. In a board book especially designed for toddlers, this could be one of the first few times that the young readers will see themselves reflected in their reading material, getting them excited about seeing a classroom and familiarizing them with what learning with a group of peers might look like.
Carle’s illustrations work in harmony with the text; each subject is placed against a simple white background, keeping the reader focused on connecting the names and colors of each new subject to their appearance. His unique style of collaging provides texture to the pages, giving even more visual contrast to the images.
In 2010, Carle discussed the evolution of Brown Bear art as it developed through different editions of the book, which you can read here: Brown Bear Tells A Story.
For my first week learning about the evolution of children’s books, I wanted to dive into the world of Eric Carle, because he isn’t just a childhood favorite for me (as I’m sure he is for many of you), but an outspoken supporter of children’s literature, education, and literacy.
Eric Carle was born in Syracuse, New York, on June 25th, 1929 to German immigrant parents. He recalled his young life to be bright and whimsical, and his art in adulthood was inspired by taking long nature walks with his father as he grew up. Carle’s family returned to Germany right before the start of World War II, which washed out the color from his life; his schooling years were ruled by strict teachers and the trauma of his father being arrested as a prisoner-of-war after being drafted into the German military. Carle was conscripted to the German military himself as a teenager.
Carle returned to the United States after he graduated from art school and began working for the New York Times in advertising. He was drafted to the U.S. military during the Korean War, serving as a mail clerk back in Germany, and when he returned from his time in the military, Carle worked as an art director for pharmaceutical advertising. His bright and textured art style can be found even in his early work, including his draw toward natural elements — Carle experimented with texture often in his illustrations, combining watercolors and bold brushstrokes with hand-painted tissue paper.
It was one of Carle’s magazine advertisements that drew the attention of author Bill Martin Jr., who then partnered with Carle to create the book If You Can Count to Ten, which was published in 1964. Three years later, the duo released Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, an opportunity that Carle said changed his life.
In a profile for Language Arts in 1977, Carle said of Brown Bear:
“The child inside me — who had been so suddenly and sharply uprooted and repressed — was beginning to come joyfully back to life.”
Brown Bear would eventually become a series of books known as Brown Bear & Friends, including the titles Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? and Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? The collection is currently available as a set of board books, keeping with Carle’s passion toward tactile and explorative books for the youngest of readers. Bill Martin Jr.’s prose fits into the board book format especially well, as his call-and-response style retains its integrity without overwhelming the page.
After the success of Brown Bear, Carle embarked on his first solo book, 1, 2, 3, to the Zoo, which was published in 1968.
His most popular book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, followed one year later. Carle ensured that Caterpillar was printed to include the holepunches in the illustrations, a new element that fueled his experimentation in engaging the senses with his work. The Eric Carle Museum says that Carle thought of his books as “a book you can play with, a toy you can read.” The Very Hungry Caterpillar was translated into 65 languages and served as the first installment in the “Very” series, which included other titles The Very Busy Spider, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Very Lonely Firefly, and The Very Clumsy Click Beetle.
Carle’s favorite book from his career was Do You Want To Be My Friend?, which was published in 1971.
He was awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, now known as the Children’s Literature Legacy Award, in 2003; this award is presented to creators who made “a substantial and lasting contribution to children’s literature”, according to Publishers Weekly. Carle’s legacy has been further recognized by Penguin Young Readers, who built “The World of Eric Carle”, an imprint that would be dedicated to Carle’s work.
Over the years, Carle helped create more than seventy children’s books, selling more than 170 million copies around the world. He championed the picture book artform and worked tirelessly to introduce art to young children alongside his wife Bobbie. The couple co-founded The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts twenty years ago. As Carle found picture books to be an introduction to literature for young readers, he’s said that he wanted to introduce those young people to a museum built for them, teaching them the joy of looking at art. The museum has hosted more than 800 thousand visitors, with travelling exhibitions that reach more than half a million visitors around the world every year.
Eric Carle passed away last year, May 23rd, 2021, at the age of 91.
As I was getting to know Eric Carle through my research of Brown Bear, I came across his blog, which was kept throughout the last decade of his life. He spoke openly to teachers and always greeted his audience with celebration, whether for the change in season or Mother’s Day. One post from September 2010 is a post of gratitude towards teachers who thanked Carle for his books, as they were accessible and enjoyable to read for students with learning disabilities. In Carle’s response, he says:
“I feel strongly that each child is an individual; each child is different. I don’t even like to use the word children. I prefer to say, a child and a child and a child. I think I make my books for a child, and that child is me, the child in me.”
Curious to learn more about Eric Carle? Check out…